Researchers conducted a naturalistic study of children between the ages of 5 and

Question

Researchers conducted a naturalistic study of children between the ages of 5 and 7 years. The researchers visited classrooms during class party celebrations. As a measure of hyperactivity, they recorded the number of times children left their seats. The researchers found a strong positive correlation between sugary snacks offered at the parties and hyperactivity. Based on these findings, the researchers concluded that sugar causes hyperactivity 5. Explain why people may easily accept the conclusion of the study described above? b. As a follow-up study, the researchers are designing an experiment to test whether a. Include in your explanation a misunderstanding of correlational studies sugar causes hyperactivity. For the experiment, please do the following. Operationally define the independent and dependent variables. State a possible hypothesis. o o Describe how random assignment can be achieved, and why it is important o 10

Explanation / Answer

a. The given study is not standardized as no proper tool of data collection was used here. The researchers did a naturalistic observation where they have casually calculated the number of times children stood up from the chair and have named this as hyperactivity. Just getting up from the chair is not indicative of being hyperactive. Some other more standardized measure should have been used by them to identify the correlation between sugary snacks offered and hyperactivity. This conclusion is baseless that sugar causes hyperactivity.

b. For the experimental study on the relationship between sugar and hyperactivity, the following can be proposed-

1. Hypothesis- The children who intake more sugar will be more hyperactive than the children who consume less sugar.

2. Independent Variable- Amount of sugar consumed.

Dependent Variable – Hyperactivity of children

Amount of sugar consumed may be manipulated in the manner where children in experimental group will be given more sugary snacks to eat and children of control group will get snacks with less sugar. Hyperactivity may then be judged with the help of a proper tool and the results may then be found to ascertain whether children who have taken more sugary snacks are more active in comparison to the children who were given less sugary snack.

3. Randomization is an important aspect in experimental researches. Randomization means that experimental groups are made through random assignments of subjects in experimental and control groups and also the random assignment of conditions to the various groups. For randomization there are generally three methods used, table of random numbers, selecting odd or eve numbered participants from an alphabetically complied list of participants name and with the help of computers.

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